US reinstates billions in fines on gas-guzzling automakers

love it. hope the pubs can't shoot it down

 

Perfect solution to the current supply problem with newer cars, and infrastructural challenges to our electrical grid!

 

It is, the large gas guzzlers take a lot more resources to build.

An efficient car like my 2010 Cobalt 5mt could be built easily using 100% domestically sourced components , it would have no chip shortages as the radio and ecu used all dirt cheap and common 25 year old components .

Sadly auto makers like not being able to produce enough cars as it drives big profits per unit, if people would bulk at the tank sized SUVs with 50 screens we might have fewer chip shortages.

 

Americans buy vehicles based on fuel costs, cheap fuel = buy big
Expensive fuel = people actually care about operating costs

Said behavior goes back many decades

if fuel stays high you will see more efficient rigs, if it goes down into the low 3’s expect everyone to instantly forget

 

Right now diesel is more expensive than petrol.
SO.....
If fuel stays high, you'll see more efficient cars, but also much higher costs for all of the stuff that doesn't get delivered BY cars....which is pretty much ALL of the stuff.

BEVs are on the horizon, but first infrastructure is going to have to play more catch-up.
Some people don't actually live in single family detached dwellings....and during times of crippling stagflation FEWER new single family detached dwellings get bought and fewer dollahs are left over for the 'little people' who cannot afford a BEV/PHEV.
Public and other congregate housing is like public transportation....It's a LOT greener, but people only want it for other people.

Also....one may expect some campaign promises on de-reinstating the billions in fines if the economy and public sentiment continue on their current trajectory.

Fun times.....

 

TSLA stock holders are smiling.

Bob Wilson

 

This is very true. However, a lot of people do live in single family dwellings. So why not ramp up production until we at least exhaust that market?

 

Works for me.
Just don't get blind-sided by the negative side effects from punishing the 99-percenters....

 

Can you clarify?
Are you suggesting 99% of people don’t have an garage.
Or that making EVs available on the market somehow punishes 99% of people?
Or something else?

 

Just responding to the actual topic on offer in the OP.

If BEVs comprise 1% of the fleet of vehicles on the highways and byways, then that leaves 99% that are what EVangelists refer to as "gassers"....even if many of them are diesels.

(oilers?)

 

I thought the OP topic was de-canceling the inflation adjustment of fines under CAFE regs.

I don't happen to remember offhand exactly which types of vehicles CAFE regs (and associated fines) apply to.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy

 

I clicked on the CAFE link above and scratched my head a bit looking at the graph, wonderin to myself " how are we doin compared to the graphs curves?" Are those expectations for 2020 (end of graph) really that unobtainable?
Trying to understand the graph better I clicked on the link below it to it's source.
PICReportSite < = NHTSA - CAFE - Public Information Center
not much help understanding those numbers there either.

economy or climate pick one

 

False binary, and if you wreck the economy you will get neither.

Even woke science cannot hide the fact that there's something of a relationship between national wealth and carbon throughput.

Beisdes...my faith in the wisdom of climate science is being somewhat undermined by recent geopolitics.
Keystone XL and Nordstream expansions serve as ONLY TWO recent examples of playing stupid games, and winning stupid prizes.

More simply put:
Economy, Security, or Climate....

Pick two.

 

there is freight that is virtually unaffected by diesel cost (because it’s hundreds of times more efficient)

There are fewer train routes today than the historical maximum and trains have become less efficient in terms of routes, layovers and delay.

Freight in Ton/Miles used to be 95% train and roads and bridges lasted longer because road based freight was dock to stock and local delivery.

Also I’ve seen diesel and gas prices invert compared to one another many times in the last 20 years, it’s quite literally flip a switch and we can dump more supply into diesel or gasoline

Right now corporate is making record profits so guess which way the switch is flipped.

Add to this $3+ Diesel is supposedly the minimum profitable amount to support Diesel made from reformed natural gas.

High prices suck but can also lead to innovation which should self correct fuel prices.

It’s unfortunate that isn’t how the auto companies are using the windfall, instead of doing something R&D
they are using this windfall to sit back and relax and get fat selling only the largest most profitable lines,
if things change hopefully those taking a break are allowed to fail.

 

Excellent point about economy of scale.
That's the principle selling point of BEVs.
Absenting renewables - BEVs are just nuclear, petrol, or coal powered....and there's a non-recurring carbon cost with renewables too.

Just remember there's usually a "last mile."
Most people do not have the ability to receive their Ikea product straight from the container.

I'll push back a little about the lack of R/D, or car companies "relaxing."
That's JUST not happening.
Stock price is the 800# primate in the room, and stocks are affected a lot MORE by global economics than they are by yet another dizzyingly complicated white paper detailing why "it is already too late to save the planet 3.0.4."

People rail about CEO earnings but that's just the shiny bauble that draws the eye away from the other hand.
Car companies, particularly US based car companies learned a nasty lesson about sloth in the 70's and 80's, and in case you haven't been keeping tabs on what's going on in the "middle kingdom" Korea is currently kicking 4 square yards of Japanese butt, and the Chi-Coms and Vietnamese are winding up.
India is non-static too, and they're are the new billionaires in human capitol.

Tesla is the new automotive "IOS" and FOMOCO, the bow-tie company, and even the Jr High school kids over at Dodge are burning midnight solar powered lamps to put affordable BEV/PHEVs on the road.

Car development moves reeeeaaaaalllly slowly.
They think in terms of 5 or 10 years.....even today.
AND that's when there's NO dampanics, wars, and woke rich people slapping each other on TV.
We change Presidents and Congressional leadership a little more quickly than that - and it's NONE of that is stopping in the next 2-4 years apparently.
Well.....except maybe the slapping part.
This provides another powerful incentive to try to fit the square peg of efficiency into the round hole of demand.

 

Our 2019 Tesla Model 3 costs $2.75 / 100 miles around town not counting free charging. The 2014 BMW i3 is $2.90 / 100 miles. Fines for poor fuel economy, higher gas prices, and blame seeking does bother us as both cars have over 65,000 miles of nearly maintenance free service, just tires, window washing fluid, and wipers.

These fines lets Tesla sell credits to lazy car makers and are just 'couch change' for Tesla. These fines reflect on the extra gas ICE owners need and pay for at the pump. But they have no effect on EV owners and new EV only makers.

Bob Wilson